Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Theses

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    Hurdy-gurdy: new articulations
    Nowotnik, Piotr ( 2016)
    The purpose of this thesis is to expand existing literature concerning the hurdy-gurdy as a contemporary musical instrument. Notably, it addresses the lack of hurdy-gurdy literature in the context of contemporary composition and performance. Research into this subject has been triggered by the author’s experience as a hurdy-gurdy performer and composer and the importance of investigating and documenting the hurdy-gurdy as an instrument capable of performing well outside the idioms of traditional music. This thesis consists of a collection of new works for hurdy-gurdy and investigation of existing literature including reference to the author’s personal experience as a hurdy-gurdy composer and performer. It will catalogue and systematically document a selection of hurdy-gurdy techniques and extended performance techniques, and demonstrate these within the practical context of new music compositions created by the author. This creative work and technique investigation and documentation is a valuable resource for those seeking deeper practical and academic understanding of the hurdy-gurdy within the context of contemporary music making.
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    Puppy love: understanding identity and emotion through the dog/human bond
    Fausch, Jaya ( 2015)
    The central research focus is an exploration of identity, my childhood and my mother, told through the story of Irma-Dream, my dog. It examines the symbiotic relationship between dogs and humans; the banality and comforts of home life; and the ubiquity of amateur aesthetics. The works are informed by photography, with varying manifestations including photographic books, videos and images brought together in installation. The studio practice is contextualised with reference to contemporary artists and contemporary research.
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    Music therapy performances with pre-adolescent children and families living in crisis: an interpretative phenomenological analysis
    FAIRCHILD, REBECCA ( 2014)
    Living in crisis due to homelessness and family violence is associated with feelings of fear, chaos and uncertainty, yet little is known about how music therapy may assist children and families at this immensely challenging time of their lives. The development of community music therapy as a theoretical framework has drawn attention to the potential value of including performance in community programs. However, the majority of research focusses on adult and adolescent populations, rather than children. Considering family members and supportive networks are likely to be audience members at children’s performances, the inclusion of performance in music therapy with children presents different challenges as well as opportunities. This qualitative project explored the experience and meaning of a music therapy performance for pre-adolescent children and their families living in crisis due to homelessness and family violence. Three children aged 11 and 12 participated in a 14-week music therapy group that culminated in the sharing of a musical performance with their families. After the performance, semi-structured interviews were conducted with the children who participated in the performance, as well as their parents. This project sought to understand the phenomenon of the performance itself, rather than the process leading up to it. The performance was a multifaceted experience for the children and their families. An interpretative phenomenological analysis (Smith, Flowers and Larkin, 2009) uncovered some of the positive and negative aspects of the performance, and these were explored in detail at an individual and family level. A cross case analysis explored some of the similarities and differences in participants’ experiences and identified three recurrent themes: the children experienced intense, but mixed emotions; the performance connected the children to their family and peers; and the audience played an active role in the performance. Adopting flow as a theoretical lens provided a possible explanation for the children’s internal and external responses that contributed to their experience of the performance. At an internal level, the children described intense emotions that were similar to flow experiences. At an external level, the children’s parents and the entire audience played an integral role in supporting the children and provided some of the conditions for flow to occur. The findings from this project may help music therapists to understand the potential therapeutic outcomes for the inclusion of performance with children and families living in crisis. However, further research focussing on the ways that music therapists and families might support children’s complex needs throughout the performance experience is required.
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    Beyond incantation: paths to the interpretation of André Jolivet's Sonata for flute and piano
    Johnson, Naomi Frances ( 2013)
    French composer André Jolivet (1905-1974) contributed several important works to the flute repertoire, constantly pushing the limits of the instrument’s technical and expressive capabilities yet maintaining a musical language distinct from that of French compositional trends in the mid-twentieth century. His two concertos and sonata written between 1949 and 1965 are seldom performed, with flautists preferring to engage with the programmatic pre-1945 works Cinq incantations pour flûte seule and Chant de Linos. This thesis adopts the methodology of practice-based research, and seeks to facilitate an informed and engaging performance of Jolivet’s 1958 work, the Sonata for flute and piano through contextual study and analysis.
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    Oh the humanity! Humour and performance in a contemporary art practice
    COULTER, ROSS ( 2013)
    This Masters project discusses humour and performance through the use and presentation of a number of video and photographic artworks. Humour can be derived from the ability to imaginatively juxtapose imagery and ideas to create unexpected relationships and outcomes. Art and creativity can function in a similar manner. This MFA seeks to examine and develop a contemporary art practice, through contrasting imagery and ideas in a performative and humourous way. The project draws parallels between the strategies and functions of humour and art, exploring the possible relationships between the two. The thesis explores questions arising from the artworks produced resulting from an investigation of specific historical and contemporary artworks and a discourse around performance. Through consideration of art historical examples, some linages and links to ways of conceiving, thinking and discussing performance and humour are made. The research acknowledges the problems of taste and subjectivity as it applies to humour, in concert with art. The project reflects upon the role of the artist, his motivations and takes excursions into formal and material concerns of photography and performance to clarify their relevance and significance to contemporary art practice and this project. Themes and ideas brought to the surface are used as foils, something to defend or push against and experiment with. They sometimes act as shadowy motivations that assist in the production of artwork. These themes include mans’ relationship to the landscape, personal histories, digital and analogue photography in the age of technological convergence, the image, self and representation, notions of personhood, contemporary performance and art. Through discussion and uncovering the toil of artwork and ideas engaged with, the humanity of the project is revealed.
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    Being scripted
    CUST, VERONICA ( 2012)
    This thesis examines the role of materiality and site-specificity in generating performancebased film work. In focus, is how the body can be scripted, prompted, or instructed by thephysical characteristics of objects and spaces that it encounters. Historical and contemporaryvideo art and filmmaking practices are surveyed bringing into question the parameters of“object” and “performance” shaped through the medium of film. This paper and the creativework that has subsequently developed, considers the potential of film, to facilitate performancethrough its embodied sense of time and durational framing.This thesis is separated into three sections, which examine the foundations and outcomes of myproject with reference to creative practices that have influenced and shaped my understandingof the dynamic nature between performance and film. The first section identifies with myrelationship to sculptural practice, and works to unpack the elements of this discourse withreference to objects, space and the performing body. The second section revolves around“repetition” as a generative force within the context of performance. Practices and texts areexamined that illustrate the relationship between actions and futile outcomes. The final sectionof this paper focuses on the impact of specific cinematic practices, which have played a seminalrole in the development of my conceptual and technical relationship to performance and themoving image. This thesis is separated into three sections, which examine the foundations and outcomes of my project with reference to creative practices that have influenced and shaped my understanding of the dynamic nature between performance and film. The first section identifies with my relationship to sculptural practice, and works to unpack the elements of this discourse with reference to objects, space and the performing body. The second section revolves around “repetition” as a generative force within the context of performance. Practices and texts are examined that illustrate the relationship between actions and futile outcomes. The final section of this paper focuses on the impact of specific cinematic practices, which have played a seminal role in the development of my conceptual and technical relationship to performance and the moving image.
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    Noumenal secrecy: transference of dislocated acts of possession
    MCLANE ALEJOS, SHERRY ( 2012)
    In this paper, associations with philosophical arguments, critical design theories, meta-fictional discourses, and experimental publishing houses are drawn into a platform where suspension of disbelief is required to systematise the recording of data, speculations, and psychical transference. So as to actively engage with discourses of Otherness and transmutate the boundaries between objective chance and chaos; validity and hoax are no longer in the equation, tricksters are for hire. Both, the conceptual and material research is focused on the shift from interference and noise dialectics onto transference of fictional speculations that create the corpus and the annunciation of noumenal performance presence. It originates within the invocation of the exogenic agencies and its consummation is offered through ensembles that involve electronics, sound, digital media and design elements. Does this methodological platform of exchange and praxis, solely work as fiction for believers, or does an act or event offer potentialities for further engagement?
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    Don Giovanni's avenging women
    Morgan, Holly Dee ( 2013)
    A common misconception surrounds the role of the female characters in the opera Don Giovanni, composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1787 to a libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Today’s performance practice often excludes the duet “Per queste tue manine,” between Leporello and Zerlina. This thesis explores the implications of reinstating this important duet and its associated scene as both highlight a significant transfer of dominance from male to female. Its reinclusion sheds new light on the strength of the female characters in Don Giovanni. Issues of domestic violence (Zerlina and Masetto), abandonment (Elvira) and passionate revenge (Anna) are analysed to expose the shortcomings of productions that omit “Per queste tue manine” with its transfer of power from men to the women. These women are not neurotic, forgettable, or dependant. Rather, all possess a strong sense of self and like Giovanni are ambitious. Peter Sellars’s and Jose Montes-Basquer’s productions (both from 1991) offer contrasting dramatic interpretations of femininity in Don Giovanni, and are analysed to propound feminist viewpoints on characterisation. Dramatic intention is discussed as a necessary performance tool which, when applied, aids the understanding of characterisation for an audience. Theatre-great Konstantin Stanislavski’s techniques provide scope for the exploration of feminist characterisation in performance. The words of Aristotle, Sylvia Plath, and Sophocles offer literary connections between powerful femininity, abandonment, and the art of tragedy, which align with the feminist conclusions that are drawn here. The viewpoint of powerful femininity with which this thesis is aligned is that of Susan Gilbert and Sandra Gubar, as outlined in their feminist literary criticism The Mad Woman in the Attic (1979). Gilbert and Gubar advocate that readers and audiences be clearly presented with the influential attitudes of fictional women in literature; a concept that is brought to light in this thesis through an exploration of Elvira’s, Zerlina’s, and Anna’s attitudes and behaviours. Giovanni’s three women creates an immensely powerful feminine unit, which is exhaustively explored throughout the four chapters that comprise the thesis. Through an examination of the musical score, recordings, DVD performances, program notes, and musical and non-musical literature, all supporting the author’s personal engagement with the music of Zerlina, this thesis uncovers the powerful femininity often hidden within the characterisations of Mozart’s operatic creations. In Hebrew, the name Zerlina means ‘beautiful dawn’; Don Giovanni, guided by Zerlina, and when interpreted in the manner suggested, may too head towards its own innovative and beautiful dawn.
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    Imaging mastery: applying the PETTLEP model of imagery to music performance practice
    Folvig, Elliott ( 2011)
    Imagery is widely reported as a tool used by elite performers to improve their performance. Despite this, there is little clear information about the integration of imagery into music performance practice. A review of the research in this area reveals that the term imagery is an extremely broad description of the ways that mental imagery is used in almost any area or performance. In this paper I have selected a specific approach, the PETTLEP model of motor imagery rehearsal that is aimed at one specific area of performance, motor imagery. The PETTLEP model is based on an understanding, from research in neuroscience, of how the brain works in relation to motor imagery. After applying the model to music performance practice, a number of findings emerged. The model is well suited for the demands of music performance practice and had a positive effect on performance outcomes. There also emerged ways in which further use of the journaling and analysis method may be improved. The clarity and successful application of this model demonstrates that it would be possible to develop specific approaches to mental imagery in music performance practice.
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    Liminality: transformation through music performance
    Schulz, Anthony John ( 2011)
    The purpose of this thesis is: (1) to define performance in broad terms, (2) to define liminality, (3) to define silence as it relates to music performance, (4) to examine the possibility of transformation or transportation of both audience and musician through the liminal experience of performance, and (5) to present guidelines and suggestions for music teachers and students to assist them in the development of a deeper understanding and practical experience of performance. In the first chapter, important terms including silence and liminality are defined, and Richard Schechner’s Whole Performance Sequence is employed as a template for a definition of performance. This sequence is divided into three main areas: pre-liminal - concerned with the experience and development of the musician; liminal - the period of time understood for the purposes of this study, as the performance; and post-liminal - the period immediately after a performance that continues beyond the participant’s reintegration with usual social routines. Victor Turner’s definition of the liminal process as the experience of becoming, (as opposed to a transition) provides the point of departure for an exploration into the possibility that increased awareness of and in the performance experience can create an environment for transformation and transportation for performer and audience. The anthropological notion that the liminal state may be achieved through participation in traditional, ritualised performance is compared to the liminal experience that unites contemporary musicians and audiences. The final chapter suggests a series of processes for the development of reflection and strategies for the establishment of a stronger relationship between audience and musician.